LEDC - less
economically developed
country

MEDC - More economically
developed country

NIC - newly industrialised country

LLEDC - least economically
developed country

FCC - former communist country

Measuring development

Social

HDI - Human development index, Advantages: gives an overall
idea of the actual wealth of a
country

Life expectancy

Literacy rates

Economic

GDP, Advantages: Shows the wealth gap, Disadvantages: Doesn't show how the wealth is spread.
Takes an average.
Unreliable?

Evaluation

West only interested in development of
LEDC because it increases their purchasing
powers.

Development was seen as a
means of increasing the
Western "Sphere of influence"
as part of the ideological cold
war.

Millennium Development
Goals

8 goals created by the UN

eradicate extreme hunger and
povery

achieve universal primary education

promote gender equality

reduce child mortality

improve maternal health

combat HIV/AIDS

Ensure environmental sustainability

Develop a global partnership
for development

Criticism

the problems the goals are trying to reduce have been created
by poor governance of the leites in the developing nations who
have been engaging in corrupt practices and are more conerned
with enriching themselves than improving the lives of their
people.

More criteria need to be added to the MDGs such as:
protecting human dignity, encouragement of religious
tolerance and freedom to participate in political affairs.

reflect a desire to impose Western values and instiutions
on developing nations in order to persuade them that the
industrial capitalist development path is the best possible
route to benefit their people.

Development
or
Westernisation?

Kingsbury et al (2004)

the focus of the MDG on education and economic
success highlights Western values and the ways of
thinking at the expense of traditional cultures, implying
that the latter are deficient and have little to contribute.

ethnocentrism

fails to consider that Western values may
have little cultural meaning in the
developing world.

fails to consider the alternative models of
development rooted in the religious beliefs
if people in the developing world.

Western style democracy

Western models of development generally tend to assume
that democratic forms of development are more suitable
than communist or socialist models (dismissed as extremist
and dangerous).

Evidence that Western agencies (World Bank &
IMF) distributed aid in the past on the coniditon
that socialist/communist policies were
jettisoned., Policies have positive benefits for
peeople in developing world such as
farmers.